by Terry Madden
Connor’s lungs burned. He sat down in the wet sand and let his breath warm his bare legs. Then, from behind the rock wall, a rippling glow spread through the water of the pool. It came from behind the cliff face. There had to be a cave behind the wall, and Dish was inside.
Connor got to his feet and paced circles.
“Dish? Mr. Cavendish?” He called as loud as he dared. What if someone else was in there?
He collapsed back to the sand, his arms around his knees, and watched the green light flicker and dance in the pool. He should go in, find out what all this scary shit was about.
The sky started to warm in the east. What was he going to tell Father Owens? Mr. Cavendish got tattooed by a pool of water he visits every morning to do something I was afraid to see?
Finally, he got up and started back down the beach. He’d find out what Dish was up to some other way.
He was halfway to the path when he looked over his shoulder. He could still see the green light, rippling, like something was in the water. What if Dish was in trouble? He could drown in there. “Shit.”
Connor ran back, pulled off his shoes and waded in. The icy water stopped his breath. He sat down and pushed his legs under the rocky ledge, and the sandy shelf fell away into a bottomless well.
Holding his breath, he dove under the rock. His panic forced his eyes open, but they didn’t sting in this water. He swam toward the light coming from above. The bubbles streaming from his arms and legs like jewels in the light.
He surfaced.
Dish was perched on a narrow shelf of gravel and shells, his knees tucked up. He was buck-naked and held a flashlight aimed at the walls of a cavern. The air was moist and stagnant like the inside of the earth’s lungs.
“What—the—hell?” Connor pushed wet hair out of his eyes.
Dish wore the face of another man, a scary man. He looked confused and wrung out, or maybe it was just the light.
“Dish?”
He finally looked at Connor, not at him, but through him, then back at the wall above.
“You’ve no business following me.”
“What happened to ‘where I go, you go’?”
“This doesn’t concern you.”
“You said you had something to show me. Is this it?”
“No.”
Connor’s eyes adjusted to the low light until he could make out what Dish was staring at—some kind of cave drawing. Three red spirals, one winding into the next. Sooty black handprints surrounded the spirals like stars. Shivering, Connor swam toward the gravel shelf and sunk his knees into it.
“What is it?”
Dish dropped the flashlight to the gravel and the spear of light bounced and pointed at nothing. He dragged his fingers through his hair. His voice was a hoarse whisper. “I remember things I shouldn’t remember.”
“Like what?”
Dish glared at Connor, picked up the flashlight, and switched it off.
The cave went black. Their breathing echoed and Connor’s quickened. The sand gave way under his knees as he slid back into the bottomless pool.
“Leave me be, Connor.” Dish’s voice boomed off the stone walls.
The darkness was absolute, the surf a distant drumming from another world. Connor thrashed about until panic gripped him. Dish had said there was something in the water—something big.
“Dish!”
He flogged the black water until he felt the edge of rock that marked the entrance. He almost forgot to fill his lungs before he dove under and felt his way through the opening. Scraping his side on the rocks, he surfaced, gasping for air.
Outside, the moon had set as dawn took over. He coughed up water, staggered out of the pool, and fell to the sand. Shivering, he looked back to see no light coming from the cave.
His eyelashes beaded with water and tears. He spat out more water and pulled on his shoes, then headed down the beach, leaving Dish to his darkness.
It was raining freaking buckets.
Trick or treating would suck tonight. It made Connor glad he was too old for Halloween. The last time he tried to trick or treat, an old lady told him he should be ashamed of himself, right before she slammed the door in his face.
He waited for Dish, huddled under the overhang of the maintenance shed watching the rain spank the roof of his grandma’s Audi. Dish still had the keys. Since the morning in the cave, Dish had spoken half a dozen words to Connor. But today he’d asked Connor to drive him on an errand.
“My battery’s dead,” Dish had told him. “We’ll take your car.”
He’d probably left his lights on after his naked, nutcase swim at dawn. So, now chauffeuring was part of Connor’s punishment. Dish didn’t even seem to notice that Connor was giving him the silent treatment; he was too busy being out of his fucking mind.
Dish appeared from around the corner of the dining hall. He plowed through the squall, the tails of his raincoat blowing behind him. He tossed the keys to Connor, who hit the unlock button and they both spilled into the cracked leather seats.
“Let’s go,” Dish said. “I found what I was looking for. It will help me explain.”
Connor did his best Igor. “Yes, master.”
The rain fell harder. Connor turned left onto PCH as Dish instructed and stayed in the right lane. He’d never driven in the rain before, so he slowed and gripped the wheel tighter. Cars passed and sent up curtains of water. The wipers squealed as he drove in painful silence. Was Dish waiting for him to start talking?
Connor couldn’t stand it any longer. He blurted, “Aren’t you going to threaten me or something?”
“Why should I threaten you?”
“Because I invaded your—your privacy, doing whatever it was you were doing in that cave. You’re having hallucinations or something, right? ‘I remember things I shouldn’t remember.’ That’s what you told me.” The rain nearly drowned out his words.
Dish turned to him, his eyes bloodshot and filled with secrets. “Connor, I need you to understand… there’s another world out there, one I remember with painful clarity, and it shapes us no less than this one.”
“Another world. Sure. But you probably don’t want anyone to know about this… this other world, right?”
Connor stopped at a red light.
“What are you saying?” Dish said.
“I’m just saying maybe Father Owens wouldn’t want an unstable person teaching English to impressionable kids. Maybe we can make a deal, is all I’m saying.”
“Bloody blackmail?” Dish snorted a laugh and dragged his palms down his cheeks. “And when you’re expelled, what will you do? Run home to mum who’s too busy drinking to wonder where you are? End up like your brother?”
The red light lasted an eternity. The wipers slap-slapped with Connor’s heart and Dish kept talking.
“You know as well as I that running away won’t fill the emptiness.”
“You don’t know jack shit.” Connor’s eyes clouded with tears.
“But I do.”
The light turned green.
The road opened up like an invitation. Connor stomped on the gas and the wheels spun. It felt good to go fast. The car cut a wake through pooling rainwater, and then they were flying. The tires no longer crawled on the pavement, but glided and took their own path. He turned the wheel, but it did nothing. They crossed over the center line and into oncoming traffic.
He saw the van closing in for the longest millisecond in history, heard crushing metal, a frozen car horn, and rain. Through the broken windshield the sky poured in.
He stopped screaming.
Looking down at the bloody man in his lap, Dish’s eyes met Connor’s before everything went as black as the cave.
Chapter 4
Lyleth found the dockside streets nearly empty, for most of the city was still fighting over Ava’s coins. Caer Ys sat like a pearl inside the oyster of the bay, and a great sweep of calm water sheltered a sizeable harbor, trade port to the southern lands, even as far away
as Cadurques and the inland sea. Timber, wool and tin sailed out as wine, silks and silver sailed in. A curtain of fog had crept in to cloak fishing scows and trade galleys, but a tavern window spilled light at Lyleth’s feet.
Once inside, she skirted a crowd of drunken sailors smelling of sweat and salty wool, their tongues thick with the south.
She found Rhys waiting at a table in a dim corner, his mug more for show than for drink. Rumor said the ale in this tavern wasn’t of the same quality as its whores, and judging by the sounds drifting from the rooms above, it was likely so.
Lyleth took a stool across from Rhys and pushed back her hood.
When Nechtan lay dying, it was Rhys who sat with his king through long nights—and it was Rhys who watched Ava’s healer apply a stinking balm to a wound that should have healed with nothing more than a good washing with winterbloom.
A barmaid clapped a horn of ale on the table in front of Lyleth. “Two pence.”
Rhys dropped coins in her hand.
“Diggin’ for gold in the streets, eh?” the barmaid asked him.
Rhys laughed. “A queen with an open hand is a queen I drink to, lass.” He raised his mug to the girl.
“Watch your words,” he whispered to Lyleth when the barmaid had gone. He nodded toward three men two tables over. “They say she’s summoned the chieftains to Caer Ys.”
“Of course she has; she’ll see who fails to lick her toes.” Lyleth leaned in. “And who’ll challenge her but me?”
“She’s been chose.” Rhys glanced over his shoulder at the drunken seamen.
“You know better, Rhys. Ava is the get of reavers.”
“I know that no king’s been chose by a well guardian since Black Brac, nine hundred years ago and more.”
“Ava took this guardian by some guile,” Lyleth said, “just as she took Nechtan’s life. Now she forces the hand of the green gods. You think they’d choose such as her to rule?”
He leveled a glare at her. “I know Black Brac was chose to push the Old Blood from this land and claim it for us.”
“You’d hand over the Five Quarters to Ava’s kind?”
“All I knows is we were the murderous reavers once. Guardians pander to none. Perhaps they’ve a grand design for this she-king.” He took a drink of ale and wiped the foam from his mustache with the back of his hand.
“Did you bring what I asked for?” Lyleth asked coldly.
“I’ve no need of trouble and you bring nothing but to me table—”
“We had an agreement.” Her palm met the table hard enough to smart and draw glances from those nearby.
Rhys rolled his eyes, reached into a pouch at his belt, and produced a small horn vial stoppered with a leather plug. He handed it over, saying, “Smells of whale blubber and lavender to me.”
She popped the plug with the hem of her cloak and sniffed. “You’re sure this was the balm Ava’s healer used on Nechtan’s wound?”
“By my life ‘tis. I took but a little. If the old crow misses it, I’ll be as dead as Nechtan.”
With the point of her dirk, Lyleth dug out a greasy bit no bigger than a pea—yellow fat with flecks of powdered root. She sniffed it.
“There’s more than whale fat here. Rancid lavender oil to be sure… and black hellebore. It’ll stop your heart, sure enough.” She replaced the stopper and slipped the vial into her own pouch.
“Stars and stones…” Rhys made the sign against evil and wiped his fingers on his surcoat. “Ava wept great tears over Nechtan. ’Twas that healer’s dark work, not Ava’s.”
Lyleth shook her head. “Don’t be a fool.”
“What’s to be done for it?” Rhys went on. “Nechtan rots, peace find him in the Fair Lands.” His hands fumbled with the sign of respect for the dead. “Ava will be she-king. Done’s done, Lyl.”
“Done’s done?”
Lyleth felt rage flush her cheeks. It had taken months for her suspicions to flower full, and now she held the truth in her hand. She’d meant to take this poison to the judges, proof that Nechtan was murdered, not by Lyleth as the queen had charged, but by the queen herself who’d wept such great gouts of tears upon her husband’s death. But if Lyleth took this proof to the judges now, they would never see past the well guardian in Ava’s hands—her rightful claim to the throne. How could the green gods cast their lot with such as Ava?
Lyleth had been betrayed by the very forces she served. She suddenly envied Nechtan the oblivion of death. But it was not a lasting oblivion. She knew they would all be called back to this world to face their failings.
Rhys started to stand, but she caught his arm. “I ask you for but one thing more, and you’ll be done with me.”
She felt the muscle of his arm tense. “It’s always one more thing,” he said.
“The last. There’ll be no need of anything else.”
“What?”
“Nechtan’s harp.”
“His harp?” Rhys snorted and plopped back to his stool. “Do you plan to sing Ava from the throne?”
“Help me, Rhys. I’ll ask for nothing else, I swear it by stars and stones.”
He waved a hand at her as he would a pesky fly. “Ava’s assigned me to the kitchen. I’ve no reason to go into Nechtan’s chamber no more, she’s movin’ everything.”
“Then find a way.”
A vein on his forehead bulged. His eyes met hers for a long moment. Rhys had a wife and children, after all.
He loosed a weary sigh. “I’ll send it.”
“When?”
“Two days’ time. And I’ll not see you again.”
He downed his ale and stood as a clutch of castle guards came through the tavern door, tossing fists of coppers to the floor and laughing at the men who fought for them like dogs.
Lyleth saw only their backs on her way out the door.
Lyleth was helping Dunla cover the hives with straw for winter when she glimpsed a wagon on the road. Only someone who had business with the meadmonger would travel this way, for nothing but the Black Wood lay beyond Dunla’s holding. Her meadstead lay at the eastern reach of the vale, past apple orchards and flax fields, in the lap of the Felgarths that rose like granite teeth beyond. For these past months, Lyleth had traded labor in the hives for Dunla’s silence, but the old woman had come to be a good friend in that time.
“It comes,” Lyleth told Dunla. Bees hummed in a cloud around their heads.
“What comes, lass?” Dunla set the smoker aside and placed a cone of woven straw over a hive, then followed Lyleth’s gaze to the wagon.
“Come,” Lyleth said. “I mustn’t be seen.”
She dropped her straw screen under the skeps and started back toward the cottage. If Rhys had done this right, the messenger wouldn’t know what he carried.
Dunla came huffing into the cottage after her. “What’s all this?” The old woman wheezed and blotted her brow.
“Just agree with him.”
“Agree? With what?”
“Whatever he asks of you.”
Dunla gave Lyleth’s cheek a pat. “He best not be asking for me maidenhead, then.”
The wagon rolled to a halt outside.
“I got three barrels of mead here what tastes like sheep dung,” a man’s voice shouted. “The queen don’t like sheep dung.”
Lyleth hid between the door and the wall as Dunla stepped outside.
“I sell no sheep dung, fool,” Dunla said.
Lyleth heard the chickens protest as barrels rolled off the wagon and bounced in the yard.
“Well, these taste like the sole of a sausage-maker’s boot,” the man said.
Not until the wagon had disappeared over the pass did Lyleth go out to the yard to find three barrels of mead.
“What in the name of the mothers is going on?” Dunla said.
“It’s in one of these.” Lyleth ran her hands over the barrel heads and found one that looked like new wood. “This one.”
She found a kindling hatchet and hammer and se
t to work. “If the northern tribes rebel, they stand no chance against Ava and the south,” Lyleth said. “They need a king. I mean to give them one.”
She looked up from her work to measure Dunla’s response.
“Your lord has no get of his own, and he’s many months in his grave…” Dunla muttered. Then understanding bloomed on the old woman’s face. “What have you in that barrel?”
Lyleth pushed hair out of her eyes. “Ava’s father will come to claim what his darling girl has won for him.”
“Nechtan’s throne?”
Lyleth tapped the hatchet blade into the wood and loosened it. “Aye. The green gods can’t give up Nechtan’s throne if he sits upon it.”
Dunla slumped to the bench by the door of the cottage, fanning herself with her apron. “It’s not been done since the days of the Old Blood.”
“It doesn’t mean it can’t be done.”
“But… very near it.”
Lyleth wedged the hatchet between the planks and popped them free, then reached into the brew and felt the package. As she lifted it, the bundle shed streams of golden mead. She cut the gut that bound it and peeled away a wrapping of oilcloth that fell to the ground in sticky folds.
Dunla struggled to her feet. “The harp of the drowned maid.”
It was a simple lap harp, the soundboard made of blackthorn inlaid with shell and tarnished silver in the shape of a water horse.
A song from the time of Black Brac told of the making of this very harp. Two daughters of the high king loved the same warrior, but the warrior loved the younger of the two. The elder sister drowned the younger to have her man, but the maid’s body came ashore at the feet of a bard. He fashioned this harp from the drowned maid’s rib and strung it with her hair, and when he set it before the king at the sister’s wedding feast, the harp played alone, telling all the story of the drowned girl’s murder and naming the killer.
The neck of the harp was indeed fashioned of bone, but to Lyleth it looked much larger than a human rib. Porpoise, maybe, or seal. Silver bands held the tuning pegs in place where they were set in the bone. The strings had been cut on the death of every king for generations, as they were cut upon Nechtan’s death.
